Pest Control: Shipping Out - How One UPS Depot Bested the Birds

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Birds just love warehouses and shipping depots. High ceilings, wide open spaces, plenty of places to hide and big inviting bay doors that are almost always open ñ what could be better for a bird looking to come in out of the cold? What could possibly convince any right-brained bird to vacate such a paradise?  For one Oklahoma United Parcel Services building, the answer was a bit fruity  — Concord grapes.

Or the smell of Concord grapes, to be exact.

Tom Chism of Arrow Exterminators recalls the UPS building infestation as one of his most challenging cases. Arrow is one of Oklahoma’s largest and most respected pest control companies, a Broken Arrow-based organization that has been ridding Oklahoma businesses, homes and schools of pests for 56 years. The facility in question was a typical shipping depot construction, with high ceilings, wide open spaces and an open bay door. Birds were treating that door as their own personal passage to paradise in the warm, cozy interior of the warehouse. They particularly appreciated the building’s insulated ceiling, which they could easily tear into for making nests and comfortable perches.

Not only were the birds damaging the actual building, their droppings and the many diseases they potentially carried posed a health hazard to UPS employees working there, Chism points out. The solution needed to be not only safe for humans, but also one that wouldn't make the working environment any more unpleasant than the presence of the birds already did.  Harsh chemicals and audible sound devices were out of the question.  Maintenance of the solution needed to be simple.

Chism consulted with Arrow’s supplier of bird control products, Bird-X, Inc. Bird-X is the Chicago-based manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrence products since 1964. Bird-X and Arrow are family-owned and operated. But the real reason the two companies align so well is not the ownership; it’s their shared philosophy of finding a humane, environmentally-friendly solution for the customer in a way that goes beyond selling a product or service.  The consultation resulted in a recommendation for Chism’s team to apply BirdShield, an all-natural, non-toxic Bird-X product derived from Concord grapes. Used for decades by the food and drug industry to flavor candy, gum, soda and drugs, the grape scent is inoffensive to humans. Birds, however, simply hate it. BirdShield is a special formulation of the flavoring developed, tested and EPA-approved specifically to repel birds. Sprayed directly on the areas of the UPS building where birds were making their nests, the product quickly convinced the feathered pests “that there’s got to be a better place than this,” Chism says. Sheltered inside and out of the elements, the product need only be reapplied on a quarterly basis to keep the building bird-free.

“The facilities director there tells me ‘Tom, you've changed my life,’” he says.

By Evelyn Hall, business writer